How a brilliant composer blew his talent on admin

… On the strength of these successes, he became the go-to man for running new colleges and foundations, the archetype Victorian administrator, upright, incorruptible and irredeemably conservative. He thought Verdi ‘immeasurably inferior’ to Rossini and struck Schumann off the Royal Academy syllabus. His own gift, such as it was, was crushed by his onerous public duties….

Listened to his piano concerti. Very enjoyable. Reading comments on different sites, I was surprised to read so many comparaisons with Mendelssohn and Schumann, but no mention of Chopin concerti, especially in orchestra introductions, piano entrances and melodic gift.

The reason that this music is so bland is not because of being ‘conservative’ (also Bach was ‘conservative’) but because of groping to the most obvious that lays in his path. Like Mendelssohn without the spirit, or a glass of champagne you find the day after the party with all the bubles gone.

The land without music? The year Sterndale-Bennett died, another English composer turned 18. Since then, the English have held their own. In many ways you’d have to say they’ve got at least Germany well and truly covered.

Yes. But the really good music sets up patterns from which it is then deviating, and returning to later-on, in subtle ways. Something between the expected and the unexpected. Writing the entirely expected and the entirely unexpected is both easy, but finding the right mixture is difficult.

From the archives

From the archives

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